‘I am disturbing you?’ said Claude.
‘Not at all. I have been working ever since morning, and I’ve had enough of it. I’ve been killing myself for the last hour over a sentence that reads anyhow, and which has worried me all through my lunch.’
The painter made a gesture of despair, and the other, seeing him so gloomy, at once understood matters.
‘You don’t get on either, eh? Well, let’s go out. A sharp walk will take a little of the rust off us. Shall we go?’
As he was passing the kitchen, however, an old woman stopped him. It was his charwoman, who, as a rule, came only for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. On Thursdays, however, she remained the whole afternoon in order to look after the dinner.
‘Then it’s decided, monsieur?’ she asked. ‘It’s to be a piece of skate and a leg of mutton, with potatoes.’
‘Yes, if you like.’
‘For how many am I to lay the cloth?’
‘Oh! as for that, one never knows. Lay for five, at any rate; we’ll see afterwards. Dinner at seven, eh? we’ll try to be home by then.’
When they were on the landing, Sandoz, leaving Claude to wait for him, stole into his mother’s room. When he came out again, in the same discreet affectionate manner, they both went downstairs in silence. Outside, having sniffed to right and left, as if to see which way the wind blew, they ended by going up the street, reached the Place de l’Observatoire, and turned down the Boulevard du Montparnasse. This was their ordinary promenade; they reached the spot instinctively, being fond of the wide expanse of the outer boulevards, where they could roam and lounge at ease. They continued silent, for their heads were heavy still, but the comfort of being together gradually made them more serene. Still it was only when they were opposite the Western Railway Station that Sandoz spoke.
‘I say, suppose we go to Mahoudeau’s, to see how he’s getting on with his big machine. I know that he has given “his gods and saints” the slip to-day.’
‘All right,’ answered Claude. ‘Let’s go to Mahoudeau’s.’
They at once turned into the Rue du Cherche-Midi. There, at a few steps from the boulevard, Mahoudeau, a sculptor, had rented the shop of a fruiterer who had failed in business, and he had installed his studio therein, contenting himself with covering the windows with a layer of whitening. At this point, the street, wide and deserted, has a quiet, provincial aspect, with a somewhat ecclesiastical touch. Large gateways stand wide open showing a succession of deep roomy yards; from a cowkeeper’s establishment comes a tepid, pungent smell of litter; and the dead wall of a convent stretches away for a goodly length. It was between this convent and a herbalist’s that the shop transformed into a studio was situated. It still bore on its sign-board the inscription, ‘Fruit and Vegetables,’ in large yellow letters.
Claude and Sandoz narrowly missed being blinded by some little girls who were skipping in the street. On the foot pavement sat several families whose barricades of chairs compelled the friends to step down on to the roadway. However, they were drawing nigh, when the sight of the herbalist’s shop delayed them for a moment. Between its windows, decked with enemas, bandages, and similar things, beneath the dried herbs hanging above the doorway, whence came a constant aromatic smell, a thin, dark woman stood taking stock of them, while, behind her, in the gloom of the shop, one saw the vague silhouette of a little sickly-looking man, who was coughing and expectorating. The friends nudged each other, their eyes lighted up with bantering mirth; and then they turned the handle of Mahoudeau’s door.
The shop, though tolerably roomy, was almost filled by a mass of clay: a colossal Bacchante, falling back upon a rock. The wooden stays bent beneath the weight of that almost shapeless pile, of which nothing but some huge limbs could as yet be distinguished. Some water had been spilt on the floor, several muddy buckets straggled here and there, while a heap of moistened plaster was lying in a corner. On the shelves, formerly occupied by fruit and vegetables, were scattered some casts from the antique, covered with a tracery of cinder-like dust which had gradually collected there. A wash-house kind of dampness, a stale smell of moist clay, rose from the floor. And the wretchedness of this sculptor’s studio and the dirt attendant upon the profession were made still more conspicuous by the wan light that filtered through the shop windows besmeared with whitening.
‘What! is it you?’ shouted Mahoudeau, who sat before his female figure, smoking a pipe.
He was small and thin, with a bony face, already wrinkled at twenty-seven. His black mane-like hair lay entangled over his very low forehead, and his sallow mask, ugly almost to ferociousness, was lighted up by a pair of childish eyes, bright and empty, which smiled with winning simplicity. The son of a stonemason of Plassans, he had achieved great success at the local art competitions, and had afterwards come to Paris as the town laureate, with an allowance of eight hundred francs per annum, for a period of four years. In the capital, however, he had found himself at sea, defenceless, failing in his competitions at the School of Arts, and spending his allowance to no purpose; so that, at the end of his term, he had been obliged for a livelihood to enter the employment of a dealer in church statues, at whose establishment, for ten hours a day, he scraped away at St. Josephs, St. Rochs, Mary Magdalens, and, in fact, all the saints of the calendar. For the last six months, however, he had experienced a revival of ambition, on finding himself once more among his comrades of Provence, the eldest of whom he was—fellows whom he had known at Geraud’s boarding-school for little boys, and who had since grown into savage revolutionaries. At present, through his constant intercourse with impassioned artists, who troubled his brain with all sorts of wild theories, his ambition aimed at the gigantic.
‘The devil!’ said Claude, ‘there’s a lump.’
The sculptor, delighted, gave a long pull at his pipe, and blew a cloud of smoke.
‘Eh, isn’t it? I am going to give them some flesh, and living flesh, too; not the bladders of lard that they turn out.’
‘It’s a woman bathing, isn’t it?’ asked Sandoz.
‘No; I shall put some vine leaves around her head. A Bacchante, you understand.’
At this Claude flew into a violent passion.
‘A Bacchante? Do you want to make fools of people? Does such a thing as a Bacchante exist? A vintaging girl, eh? And quite modern, dash it all. I know she’s nude, so let her be a peasant woman who has undressed. And that must be properly conveyed, mind; people must realise that she lives.’
Mahoudeau, taken aback, listened, trembling. He was afraid of Claude, and bowed to his ideal of strength and truth. So he even improved upon the painter’s idea.
‘Yes, yes, that’s what I meant to say—a vintaging girl. And you’ll see whether there isn’t a real touch of woman about her.’
At that moment Sandoz, who had been making the tour of the huge block of clay, exclaimed: ‘Why, here’s that sneak of a Chaine.’
Behind the pile, indeed, sat Chaine, a burly fellow who was quietly painting away, copying the fireless rusty stove on a small canvas. It could be told that he was a peasant by his heavy, deliberate manner and his bull-neck, tanned and hardened like leather. His only noticeable feature was his forehead, displaying all the bumps of obstinacy; for his nose was so small as to be lost between his red cheeks, while a stiff beard hid his powerful jaws. He came from Saint Firmin, a village about six miles from Plassans,
